Azman Air secures FG’s approval to evacuate Nigerians from Egyptian border

The federal government has given approval to Azman Air to assist the evacuation of stranded Nigerians at the Egyptian border amid the ongoing Sudan’s war.

The Informant247 earlier reported that the chairperson of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has revealed that the Egyptian border has finally been opened for stranded Nigerian students to be evacuated from Sudan.

According to Dabiri-Erewa, the development came following a dialogue between President Muhammadu Buhari and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

The popular Nigerian airline said the federal government has given its approval to begin the evacuation on Tuesday May 2nd.

“Azman Air has received the approval of the federal government to evacuate Nigerians stranded at the Egyptian border amid the Sudan crisis with the 409-seater Airbus A340-600,” the aviation firm tweeted.

“Evacuation is expected to commence from Tuesday 2nd May as we await final clearance from Egypt to depart.”

The Informant247 earlier reported that the Nigerian government had vowed to evacuate its stranded citizens from the war torn zone.

$1.2m not sufficient to evacuate Nigerians from Sudan by road – FG

The federal government has revealed that the sum of $1.2m would not be sufficient for the evacuation of Nigerians from Sudan via road.

This was revealed by the permanent secretary of the federal ministry of humanitarian affairs, Dr. Sani Gwarzo.

Gwarzo said the sum of $30,000 was expended on each of the buses hired for the assignment.

He said the federal government had got 31 buses to supplement the buses already on ground for emergencies.

“We have given the bus company our word that under no circumstances shall they leave anybody on ground; even if it is one more person that is remaining let them activate our reserve list and bring out the new buses.”

“And I spoke to the student leader and the Embassy in this regard, so we are expecting each bus will carry 49 persons and if you calculate this number times 31 buses it will give you the number of persons to be evacuated today.

“Do you know how much it takes to hire a bus from Khartoum to the border?, is 30,000 dollars per bus and you times it by 40 buses, that is where 1.2 million dollars comes into.

“So, we transfer the first tranche of the money approved by federal government, which is 400,000 dollars, to them as deposit if you take our 400,000 dollars what does it come to you is 1/3 of the total sum.

“So, they gave us 13 buses times 30,000 dollars it will give us 390,000 dollars believing that will continue with the evacuation, but they stopped giving us buses that our money has expired.

“But, they kept the remaining 10,000 dollars and told us that our money has finished untill we complete the remaining balance because we are meant to understand in Sudan there is nothing like you deposit money until assignment is done before you complete the remaining balance.

“We started transferring the remaining balance in tranches and believe me you don’t transfer money to Sudan directly, you have to get somebody who knows the company who will transfer and give them cash then go into agreement.

“And the transport company threatened that they will not move on with the evacuation process and whoever thinks that 1.2 million dollars will be enough to move people from Khartoum to the border and airlift them to Nigeria is being economical with the truth,” he said.

He said the federal government had engaged the service of the transport company to enable due process in the transmission of funds.

“We signed an MoU with them and at every stage we report this to DSS and NFIU so that they can monitor the movement of the money.

”And the company too should know that in Nigeria if you transfer money from government account, it does not go direct because it has a dashboard that it can be seen.

“We had to alert the DSS and NFIU before we send this money, though in the process the money got delayed by the Central Bank System and this is what they call swift electronic cash transfer system, it got delayed,” he said.

He told the media to be subject in their reportage as the safety of the evacuees and the emotions of their relations are at stake.